Photo by W. Benvenutti
February 2005
Voice Lesson
by Heather Nordell
A recent project set me on a search for quotations from notable historical and contemporary figures. During my hunt, I visited several websites that offered vast collections of quotes. It struck me how disproportionately great was the number of quotes from men over the number from women. This not entirely surprising observation begged the question of how present and heard is the woman’s voice in our society today. Not long after, Evergreen Monthly editor Bob Condor proposed the topic of “the woman’s voice” as the focus for a roundtable.
Evergreen Monthly brought together a group of five women, ranging in age from thirties to sixties, to discuss their experience expressing their voices. Each participant holds a leadership role in her professional or community life that regularly brings her voice into the public realm. Evergreen Monthly wanted to explore what gives each one the most confidence or the largest challenge in sharing her voice.
EM: What is your background?
Wanda Benvenutti — Photojournalist and member of the leadership team for Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE Seattle)
I am half Puerto Rican and grew up in New York. I didn’t learn to speak English until I was seven. My mother was the first in my family to go to college. She exposed me to the civil rights movement, which sparked my continued interest in issues of poverty and economic injustice. Over the last two years, I became involved with BALLE when I decided that shopping at Wal-Mart was a bad idea. I have found it a personal challenge to educate my conservative grandmother about how shopping for sales at Wal-Mart can cost in other ways that hurt workers. I have been in a seven-year relationship, which has taught me a great deal. We were good for each other since we had similar ideals but very different ways of handling them. We helped each other learn to come to a middle ground. I am currently a photojournalist and writer and am blessed doing work that I love. I am working on a book titled American Boricua: Puerto Rican Life in the United States. It is a visual history of modern Puerto Rican culture in all 50 states of the U. S.
Goldie Caughlan — Nutrition Education Manager at PCC Natural Markets, member of the National Organic Standards Board and singer
I spent my first ten years in the backwoods of Idaho. My family’s subsistence life produced essentially 100 percent of our own food. After my father’s death when I was ten, my mother became the main provider, and I took over my own parenting. I was strong academically, but had no role models. In high school, I was advised to become a secretary (which I did for twenty years) and knew little about other available professions. My brother died when I was 15. I sought comfort in a local church where I discovered my operatic singing voice and began studying music.
For many years, I felt more comfortable sharing my singing voice than my speaking voice, feeling I had nothing of value to say. My late husband of 32 years was a civil rights lawyer, activist and feminist. Through his mentoring, I became more active in my community. After reading France Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet in 1973, I began examining the relationship between people and food. My early years prepared me to think of more healthful connections with our food source. I studied health education and realized I was a born teacher. Twenty-two years ago, I began teaching at PCC and later founded the PCC FoodWorks (now PCC Cooks).
Ariella Shuster — Public defender for the Defenders Association, member of the leadership committee for the local Anti-Defamation League and volunteer yoga instructor
I am from New York and the first American born in my immediate family. As a child of holocaust survivors, I am very interested in issues of social justice, poverty and racism. I found my private school insular, so I decided to switch to pubic school. At school, I saw a stratified social environment, which yielded a race riot every year. I started learning more about issues of inequity. While I was in law school, I volunteered at a homeless shelter. You can really connect with and expand someone else’s world just by being there. Changing worlds punctures your own world. The more punctures there are, the more you can participate in the world. Being a young, petite woman, I decided to become a lawyer because I wanted to be taken seriously and be able to really have an impact. My work as a public defender does make a difference, but also shows me the frustrating results that disenfranchising people has on a community.
Kay Hirai — Founder and owner of award-winning Studio 904
I was born in Japan. When I was very young, my American-born mother left my abusive stepfather and took me to the United States with only one suitcase. Wanting to cut off all ties with Japan, she started me in an English-speaking school before I even knew the language. When I graduated from high school, people told me I was artistic, so I went into cosmetology. I was discouraged by some exploitive industry practices with the commission and tipping structure. I wanted to create a new system with a meaningful workplace.
About 15 years ago, I watched a Town Hall meeting where an unemployed woman stood up and said, “Just give me a chance.” After many challenges and battles, I created a new system that drew from a new workforce of low-income, unemployed and under-skilled. My salon, Studio 904, offers training and career development through the Japanese Kaizen lifelong learning philosophy of taking one incremental step at a time. After the business received its first award, I realized how fortunate I was and wanted to give back. Since then, I have served on numerous government committees, and our employees do community-service projects to cut hair for low-income schools and shelters. We help give people their pride. Our tagline is, “Personal best anytime, anywhere.”
Kris Steinnes — Founder and former executive director of the Women of Wisdom Conference
I come from a hardworking Norwegian family. Both my mother and aunt graduated from college. During the depression, my mother worked as a teacher. My father joined the army during World War II, and my mother stopped working while raising her children until they were older. At that time, there weren’t many role models for the working mother. After graduating from college, I worked as a pattern designer in the clothing industry for 20 years. I was laid off in 1983, at which point I traveled for three years. While I was in Asia, I was struck by they way people touch the earth and practice daily spirituality. When I returned, I didn’t want to rejoin the corporate world and joined the Unity Church. After reading The Feminine Face of God, I was compelled to bring inspiring women to Unity to share their incredible, powerful stories. This idea sparked the first Women of Wisdom Conference 13 years ago.
EM: Who or what examples have been role models for you?
Goldie: Both my late husband and Hazel Wolf—who retired from his office when I went to work for him—were exceptional lifelong mentors and role models to me for more than three decades, until their deaths. Their remarkable life examples really gave me courage and confidence in finding my voice and developing my own growing activism.
Kris: I think many women try to model their behavior after men, particularly in leadership roles. They don’t have good role models. I had several women bosses who acted more like men. The Women of Wisdom Conference uses a circle, egalitarian model where all voices are heard. We use a talking stick so the quiet voices get just as heard as the loud voices. The conference taught me new ways to communicate that are less confrontational, that come from a different place energetically, yet are still very powerful.
Wanda: Some people see energy from a perspective of scarcity. I had two very good women bosses who did not see energy as scarce, but rather as abundant, and therefore they led from a place detached from ego.
EM: When have you felt your voice was not heard?
Ariella: In the legal industry, aggressive personalities are more heard and rewarded. This is less about men and women and more about behaviors that are recognized as male traits. While I am an aggressive advocate, I notice that less aggressive people get less attention.
Wanda: I used to work for a newspaper where I did not feel heard. The environment had a very male-competitive culture. Many people needed to become puffy and big when they confronted and communicated. I had to change the way I responded and come from a position where we could all be the same size.
Kay: Many people could not understand why I do business they way I do. Therefore, they couldn’t really hear me. They would ask, “Don’t you want to make money?” “How do you expect to make money this way?”
Kris: When someone says “no” or “you’re wrong,” it creates a gut reaction that your voice isn’t valued. That quiets women’s voices really fast.
EM: What new developments do you see today?
Goldie: I am astounded to see some of the interpersonal negative behavior that some young girls have, much of which I truly believe is a direct outgrowth of the “commodification” conditioning of all of us.
Wanda: My mother is a feminist who assumes she has to speak loudly in order to be heard. I feel I have a different opportunity coming from the first generation of women who were born believing we are equal to men.
Ariella: I feel we should not delineate and use brand labels such as “masculine” and “feminine.” This can do a disservice. It needs to be more about being humanistic.
Kris: The models I have participated in through Women of Wisdom have taught me different ways of communicating that are more cooperative, equal, and protective.
EM: When do you feel most challenged expressing your voice?
Kay: I felt frustrated being told over and over that my way is wrong, that I shouldn’t do things the way I wanted to do them.
Ariella: I was taught to respect my elders and members of my community. I feel challenged when someone I respect says something disrespectful about someone else. Nothing stops a conversation like cutting someone off telling them they are wrong. I struggle to maintain my respectful manner, while still speaking my mind. And, I do always speak my mind.
Goldie: It is a challenge to balance emotion and intellect. If I communicate strictly from a place of passion, I can become discredited. My career as a legal secretary helped me learn to balance my voice, giving me more respect and allowing me to be heard. Even when I am very passionate about negotiating issues such as GMOs in food, I assume that a person with differing views is still a good person. I give the other person their humanhood and find ways for us to talk at the same table.
Wanda: I feel most uneasy with my own family. When I am with them, I feel my role as a daughter defines me first rather than my own individuality. Sometimes they don’t really know me.
EM: What gives your voice strength?
Kris: When I am clear about an issue, my voice is stronger. I also approach things from an inquiring mind that allows me to listen.
Goldie: I became a good public speaker because of the message I wanted to share. I have a passion for teaching about cooking, food and health. When I speak on these issues, I feel as spiritually and strongly motivated as during my years of singing and performing. On these issues, I found my voice.
Wanda: My voice is strong when I am with people who hear each other as people and approach confrontation differently.
Ariella: In court and in life, I never want to leave feeling that I didn’t say something I needed to say.
Kay: When employees leave Studio 904, they leave a better person. Seeing their lives change gives me confidence in what I do.
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